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BESIDE OUR 
FIREPLACE 







































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Beside <0ur 
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Privately printed at Cedar 
F?apids Iowa for the Inends 
ot jCuther j<U6ertus ana 
Clinore Saylor Srewer 
Christmas 1917 

era 




Copyright. 1917 , by 
LUTHER A. BREWER 


C 1 1 1317 





BESIDE OUR FIREPLACE 

f NE YEAR ago we sat down 
with our friends “beside our 
reading lamp” and under its 
gracious light held communion 
with those delightful immortals, 
those literary giants of the 
past, Lamb, Hunt, Herrick, and 
Pepys. Again at this very mellow season of 
the year we invite those old friends, and a few 
new ones we hope, to gather with us under 
the rays of that same lamp and to draw their 
chairs in a circle around our fireplace. While 
the lamp alone is a promoter of comfort and 
the kindly feeling, it is felt that the addition 
of the “clear fire” may not detract from our 
mutual pleasures. We continue to love all of 
you, and want to give you our sincere assur- 
ance that your company is very delightful 
to us. 

And where can one find a more charming 


meeting place than beside the open fire as it 
roars up the chimney, with the winds outside 
whistling their sharp tunes with reckless aban- 
don? Such a spot has no room for him who 
has something awry in his make-up. The sour 
countenance, the sharp tongue, the envious 
heart cannot exist in its friendly atmosphere. 
Each season of the year has its own especial 
attraction. The spring is welcomed because 
of its flowers and for the renewal of all life 
out of doors. The summer makes us glad 
with its opportunities for golf and baseball 
and motoring. We give the glad hand to 
autumn in thankfulness for its golden harvests 
and its soft and dreamy days. We who love 
books and reading are especially delighted 
with winter, for it brings us the long evenings 
and the fire on the hearth. 

The two seasons of the year for reading are 
summer and winter. In summer, light fiction 
attracts, and such books as can be read with 
pleasure under the trees or by the stream’s 
bank. But in winter those things which feed 
and strengthen the soul are demanded, the 
books that are worth while. No light stuff 

6 


for the reading lamp and the fireplace for us. 
We would rather simply muse and dream 
dreams in front of the fire than to read those 
books with no immortality in them. 

There is no discounting the advantage of a 
fireplace. No spot in one’s house is the center 
of so much true enjoyment. A “clear fire” — 
as Charles Lamb puts it — on the hearth not 
only purifies the air in the room but it also 
takes away the worries of the mind if one has 
brought them home with him — a thing he 
should never do. It makes for good feeling, 
for ease, physical and mental. 

There are those who hold to the opinion 
that a fire on the hearth is for heat. Some 
even maintain its purpose is to give warmth 
only. Not so. It has other and better and 
nobler uses. 

It is always good to look at. It is a charm- 
ing picture, never the same tonight that it was 
last night, changing to suit the whims of those 
in front of it. The weather outside has much 
to do with its moods. For example: As 
these lines are being written it is late Sunday 
afternoon and the snow is coming down out- 


7 


side very gently but very copiously. Indeed, 
in the words of the Psalmist, “He giveth his 
snow like wool.” And by the way, what a 
charming definition, and how expressive, was 
an ancient Greek writer’s characterization of 
snow, “woolly water.” 

The fire on the hearth is in a sort of self- 
satisfied and complacent mood. It lacks fight- 
ing spirit except at infrequent intervals when 
an unusual amount of moisture drops down the 
chimney. Then there is a brief but not very 
energetic complaint. 

It behaved differently last night. Then the 
elements out of doors were belligerent, the 
winds were turbulent and noisy. Those dis- 
turbances aroused the spirit of the fire, and 
tongues of flame were sent up the chimney, 
either in protest to the turmoil outside or in 
sympathy with it, depending upon the mood 
or point of view of the one seated in front of 
the hearth. 

An artist can make a picture, with a soul 
and a sentiment, of a family around a fire- 
place, but we defy him to do so with members 
of the household seated around a hole in the 
floor represented by a register. 

8 


With what softened feelings memory carries 
the writer back to the days of his young boy- 
hood, and what a picture remains yet upon the 
canvas of the mind of that great fireplace that 
was at least eight feet long, half as deep, and 
high enough for one to walk into without 
stooping ! The great hickory logs — the kettle 
singing — the roasted apples and chestnuts, 
even potatoes — and has anything we have 
eaten since then had the same taste — and the 
youngster by its side or sprawled on the floor 
in front, come back in reminiscent moments. 

And can we not see there now that best 
of all mothers on earth sitting at one corner 
patiently knitting far into the night, sweetest 
and fairest of all, watching, tending, caressing, 
loving. The memory of all these things 
though tinged by the sad thought that they 
are things that have been but that cannot be 
again for us, is nevertheless one that has re- 
mained through all the intervening years, giv- 
ing us glimpses of the better things. By the 
fireplace we utter sincerely the cry of Tenny- 
son, “But Oh for the touch of a vanished hand, 
and the sound of a voice that is still.” 

Sitting beside the library fire and looking 

9 


into the glowing coals when the snow is pelt- 
ing the window panes and the winds are play- 
ing hide and seek around the corner outside, 
how quickly our thoughts go back over the 
past. Our childhood days appear in pic- 
ture — and the mother, that best friend man 
or woman ever had. Are not the words of 
Wordsworth (1770-1850) true, as truth itself: 

Ah! little doth the young one dream , 
When full of play and childish cares , 
What power is in his wildest scream , 
Heard by his mother unawares! 

He knows it not , he cannot guess: 

Years to a mother bring distress; 

But do not make her love the less. 

The fireplace of our youth was almost ex- 
actly described by Irving (1783-1859) in his 
Knickerbocker s History. It was “of a truly 
patriarchal magnitude, where the whole fam- 
ily, old and young, master and servant, black 
and white, even the very cat and dog, enjoyed 
a community of privilege, and had each a 
right to a corner.” 

Cotton, the friend of genial Izaak Walton 
(1593-1683), pictured for us a rather com- 
fortable situation: 


IO 


There underground a magazine 
Of sovereign juice is cellared in, 

Liquor that will the siege maintain 
Should Phoebus ne f er return again. 

Whilst we together jovial sit 
Careless, and crowned with mirth and wit, 
Where, though bleak winds confine us home, 
Our fancies round the world shall roam. 

These words could have been spoken only 
in front of a cheerful fireplace, while the coals 
were aglow. They are not suited to the con- 
dition of the fire as told by Wordsworth: 

My fire is dead, and snowy white 
The water which beside it stood. 

The poet Thompson (1700-1748) was hos- 
tile to winter, yet found consolation 

Where ruddy fire and beaming tapers join 
To cheer the gloom. There studious let me sit 
And hold high converse with the mighty dead. 

William Cowper (1731-1800) speaks hap- 
pily of winter, “ruler of the inverted year”: 

I crown thee king of intimate delights, 
Fireside enjoyments, homeborn happiness, 


II 


And all the comforts that the lowly roof 

Of undisturbed retirement, and the hours 

Of long uninterrupted evening know. 

If the fire burns low it is easy to rouse it, 
after the suggestion of Ovid (43 B.C.- 18 A.D.), 

Kneeling, his breath calls back to life the 
flames . 

The lover of the fire on the hearth has a sort 
of contempt for what Lowell (1819-1891) so 
finely calls “secretive fires.” 

Emerson (1803-1882) tells us how the 

Housemates sit 

Around the radiant fireplace, enclosed 
In a tumultuous privacy of storm. 

What a world of comfort and security is 
conveyed by the phrase “tumultuous privacy.” 
The storm makes it quite certain that your 
evening will not be “laid waste” by any in- 
truder. Much as we welcome our friends 
beside our fireplace, we are violating no con- 
fidences and casting no aspersions upon them 
when we quote the words of a man of experi- 
ence who was constrained to say that “he, 


12 


though loved, becomes burdensome who 
warms himself too long at hospitable fires.” 

The best fire on the hearth, from an artistic 
standpoint, is that one built on a cold and blus- 
tering day. The flames then fairly roar up 
the chimney. They dance and laugh and skip 
about in waves that truly are fascinating. Not 
so much heat is radiated into the library as on 
days that are less stormy, but what is lost in 
one direction is gained in another. Give us 
the lively fire, not the one that seems to sulk 
and hesitate and display a disposition to go 
asleep before ten o’clock. 

Our fireplace never has meant more to us 
than it meant on Sunday, February the fourth, 
nineteen hundred and seventeen. A few of 
our most intimate friends were in, the evening 
before, bringing their annual good wishes and 
congratulations on an event of more or less 
importance to us — our wedding anniversary. 
The thermometer at the time of departure, 
between eleven and twelve o’clock, was at the 
zero mark — not an unusual nor unexpected 
thing during an Iowa winter, but the air was 
calm and rather pleasant and no intimation 


13 


was given by old Boreas of the bill of fare he 
was preparing to place before us in the morn- 
ing. We slept rather late, as is our custom on 
Sunday mornings, and after making our toilets 
for the day one of us started for the mail box 
on the front porch for the morning paper, 
quite ignorant of the storm that was to meet 
us and to greet us. As soon as the door was 
ajar Mr. Storm marched with vigor through 
the opening, bringing with him fine and pen- 
etrating flakes of cold snow, and rattling the 
dishes in so remote a place as the kitchen. 
His actions were so unexpected and his forced 
familiarity so unwelcome that we turned him 
out of the house with all the energy we could 
summon, and for the next twenty-four hours 
locked him out as securely as we could bar 
so persistent and so uncomfortable an enemy. 
The fire was quickly lighted on the hearth 
and kept well replenished throughout the day. 
It was indeed pleasant to sit beside it in our 
easy chairs and to laugh at the vain efforts of 
the storm king to sit down with us. The winds 
continued to blow and to roar, coming from 
the north and the west, driving the snow at tre- 
mendous pace across the veranda and around 


the comer of the house, and with such force 
that he was indeed a venturesome fellow who 
was bold enough to face the tumult in the 
streets. Some of our callers of the evening 
before were visited over the telephone, but the 
greater portion of the day was spent amid our 
cosy surroundings with the authors so well 
suited to such a tempestuous day. 

But even thus, no author was able to com- 
mand our undivided attention. From time to 
time the printed words were neglected and the 
poor, whom we always have with us, as the 
good book reminds us, was projected into our 
vision and our hearts were made the mellower 
and our life the richer by the feeling of sym- 
pathy for those cold and hungry, and by the 
wish to do them good. Thinking on these 
things by the comfortable fireside on such a 
stormy day is worth while if only our thoughts 
are serious thoughts and are followed by right 
actions when opportunity gives us the chance 
to act. We can learn by the fireplace in the 
reflections it induces how to be unselfish if 
we are not wholly such stuff as dreams are 
made of. 

“A man is called selfish, not for pursuing 

7 5 


his own good, but for neglecting his neigh- 
bor’s,” wrote Bishop Whately (1787-1863), 
and if we bear this in mind as we daily go 
about our work we need have no twinges of 
conscience for filling our souls with the com- 
fort and the joy of sitting by the fire in the 
grate, our beloved authors as our companions. 
Most of us who truly appreciate the posses- 
sion of these glorious privileges doubtless have 
earned them by the way we have fought for 
them. For it is not to be forgotten that the 
pleasures that are handed to us on platters of 
gold and silver are not to be compared with 
those we win by honorable toil and acute sac- 
rifice. Our contented lot is dearer to us the 
more we have had to suffer for it. We must, 
however, if we truly live, see to it that some of 
the light and warmth of our own comforts 
shine through the window into the dark night 
to guide and cheer the lonely and confused 
traveler on the road. 

Call this philosophizing, if you will; we 
confess that the cosy corner in the library, by 
the fireplace, is the best spot in the world in 
which to learn wisdom. 


16 


By the fireplace we may in imagination sit 
in a dark corner of the Mermaid and listen 
to Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, Beaumont and 
Fletcher, and the other wits accustomed there 
to assemble. 


What things have we seen 
Done at the Mermaid? Heard words that 
hath been 

So nimble, and so full of subtle flame, 

As if that every one from whence they came 
Had meant to put his whole soul in a jest, 
And had resolved to live a fool the rest 
Of his dull life . 

We may, if we choose, look in upon a ses- 
sion of the Literary Club, and listen to John- 
son, Garrick, Burke, Sir Joshua Reynolds, 
Goldsmith. What talk we may hear there! 

And isn’t it worth while to sit by the fire- 
place in the early evening, before the reading 
lamp is alive, and to look into that room in the 
Inner Temple occupied by the Lambs? The 
quiet game of whist is in progress, Lamb is 
dealing the hands, stuttering puns the while. 
In the company are Hunt, Coleridge, Hazlitt, 
Kemble, Godwin. As the hours wear away 
we may hear Lamb yet more hesitating in his 


speech, for the punch has been passed around. 
Oh, to have been simply the one who passed 
the hot water and the spirits! 

Under such circumstances well may we ex- 
claim : 


A king cannot swagger 
Or get drunk like a beggar , 

Nor be half so happy as /. 

When seated before the fire in the hearth 
and clothed in dressing gown and slippers, our 
favorite authors within reach, and the reading 
lamp in mellow constancy looking down upon 
us and nodding approval, we certainly can be 
forgiven if we maintain that we are happy. 

As Gilbert White (1720-1793) was content 
to live and work in quiet rural Selborne, and 
Alexander Smith (1830-1867) to pass the 
years in Dreamthorp, so are we happy to pass 
evenings in our library with such companions 
as are of our own choosing, men and women 
great of mind and soul who each stands in his 
own place provided for him by his host and 
hostess and ever ready to do our bidding. 

Like Jacques in “As You Like It” who 
loved to lie on the grassy bank of the brook, so 

18 


are we content to sit in our library and for the 
time let the world flow past us. 

The fireplace makes its appeal to all lovers 
of books. One does not think of a library 
room as lacking this essential. Writers on 
books and libraries ever mention it. Leigh 
Hunt (1784-1859) gives us one of the best 
descriptions of the comfort afforded by books 
and the fireplace: 

Sitting , last winter, among my books, and 
walled round with all the comfort and protec- 
tion which they and my fire-side could afford 
me; to-wit, a table of high-piled books at my 
back, my writing-desk on one side of me, some 
shelves on the other, and the feeling of the 
warm fire at my feet, I began to consider how 
I loved the authors of those books; how I loved 
them, too, not only for the imaginative pleas- 
ures they afforded me, but for their making 
me love the very books themselves, and delight 
to be in contact with them . I looked sideways 
at my Spenser, my Theocritus, and my Ara- 
bian Nights; then above them at my Italian 
poets; then behind me at my Dryden and 
Pope; my romances, and my Boccaccio; then 
on my left side at my Chaucer, who lay on 
a writing-desk; and thought how natural it 


was in C. L. [ Charles Lamb ] to give a kiss to 
an old folio, as I once saw him do to Chap- 
man s Homer. At the same time, I won- 
dered how he could sit in that front room of 
his with nothing but a few unfeeling tables 
and chairs, or at best a few engravings in trim 
frames, instead of putting a couple of arm- 
chairs into the back room with the books in it, 
where there is but one window . Would I 
were there, with both chairs properly filled, 
and one or two more besides! “We had talk, 
sir,” — the only talk capable of making one 
forget the books . 

What would not we also give to be one of 
such company! Lamb, and Hunt, and Cole- 
ridge, and Byron, and Wordsworth occasion- 
ally, made a distinguished gathering. 

One of the joys of the fireplace comes from 
the opportunity and the incentive it gives to 
thinking. Much pleasure as well as much 
benefit comes to the soul that pauses for con- 
templation. The cry is insistent betimes, “let 
me alone ; I want to think,” as the lobster ex- 
claimed in The Water Babies . There are 
those, we know, who never seem to be happy 
unless they are busy about work of some kind. 


20 


These strive to avoid reflection. Not that 
there may be Banquo’s ghosts in their past, but 
they seem to be anxious to drown thought. 
Souls do not ripen and grow mellow under 
these conditions. The gentle Savior, whose 
birth we are now celebrating, rebuked Martha 
because she would be busy about her house- 
hold affairs and the entertainment of her 
guests, and praised Mary because she pre- 
ferred to sit and hear Him talk. 

Mary’s conduct on this occasion meets the 
fireside lover’s approval. 

“Thinking is the talking of the soul with it- 
self,” said Plato (429-347 B.C.). It makes for 
manhood, for strength of character, for peace 
and contentment. Wordsworth’s “thoughts 
that do often lie too deep for tears” need not 
make one unduly sad but rather pleasantly 
reminiscent. “Thought means life,” wrote 
Alcott (1799-1888), “since those who do not 
think do not live in any high or real sense. 
Thinking makes the man.” 

Samuel Johnson, that beloved fireside com- 
panion, tells of one who, being asked whether 
he retired from the army in disgust, answered 
“that he had laid down his commission for no 


21 


other reason but because there ought to be 
some time for sober reflection between the life 
of the soldier and his death.” 

And the fireplace is the place for soul-sweet- 
ening reflection. Beside our fireplace cares 
cannot come into the dream-land where we 
exist. As Whittier (1807-1892) so well ex- 
presses it: 

Shut in from all the world without, 

We sat the clean-winged hearth about, 
Content to let the north wind roar, 

In baffled rage at pane and door, 

While the red logs before us beat 
The frost line back with tropic heat. 

Listen to the happiness expressed by Leigh 
Hunt when he was privileged to sit before his 
fire, his beloved books near him: 

Here we are again, with our fire before us, 
and our books on each side . What shall we 
do? Shall we take out a Life of Somebody, 
or a Theocritus, or Petrarch, or Ariosto, or 
Montaigne, or Marcus Aurelius, or Moliere, 
or Shakespeare, who includes them all? Or 
shall we read an engraving from Poussin or 
Raphael? Or shall we sit with tilted chairs, 
planting our wrists upon our knees, or toasting 


22 


the up-turned palms of our hands , while we 
discourse of manners and of mans heart and 
hopes , with at least a sincerity , a good inten- 
tion , and good-nature, that shall warrant what 
we say with the sincere, the good-intentioned, 
and the good-natured . 

There indeed we are privileged to “make a 
summer of the heart and laugh at winter old.” 

Truly with Bliss Carman we may say: 

And then when winter comes with smoulder- 
ing dusk 

To kindle rosy flames upon the hearth, 

And hang its starry belt upon the night, 

One firelit room is large enough for heaven — 
For all we know of wisdom and of love, 

And the eternal welfare of the heart. 

The business of being “far from the mad- 
ding crowd’s ignoble strife” is rather pleasant. 

We need to have our friends come in to visit 
us beside our fireplace, for he who gets his 
knowledge of nature out of Wordsworth, Jef- 
feries, or White, and of humanity from Shake- 
speare, will never know either as he should 
know them. Indeed, we hold with Francis 
Hopkinson Smith that “the kindling of a fire 


23 


is the gathering of half a dozen friends to- 
gether . . . the cheer of good comrade- 

ship warming them all.” For as Emerson so 
charmingly puts it: “The ornament of the 
house is the friends who frequent it.” 

And does not Goldsmith put it delightfully 
in his Deserted Village : 

Bless d that abode where cheerful guests retire 
To pause from toil, and trim their evening fire . 

There are those — old curmudgeons sure- 
ly — who speak of “red-letter nights in which 
the swish of a petticoat is never heard.” We 
cannot stand for this attitude. We prefer the 
solitude described by the Irishman as “being 
alone with one’s sweetheart.” 

Emerson somewhere speaks of the “tumult- 
uous privacy of storm.” This must have been 
said while he was seated by his fireplace. 

The praises of the fire on the hearth have 
been sung by many. “Whilst I was musing,” 
says the Psalmist, “the fire burned.” In Pro- 
verbs reference is made to the fireplace : “For 
lack of wood the fire goeth out; and where 
there is no whisperer, contention ceaseth.” 
Here’s a bit of philosophy all of us may take 


24 


to heart. A poet in a reminiscent mood said 
to himself, “my merry fire sings cheerfully to 
itself.” Shelley (1792-1822) was fond of 
sprawling on the floor in front of his fire with 
a book in his hands. In a burst of enthusiasm 
he exclaims : “Men scarcely know how beau- 
tiful the fire is.” 

Shelley, by the way, was always reading, we 
are told by Hogg; at his meals a book lay by 
his side, on the table, open. Tea, toast, mut- 
ton, all were often forgotten, his author sel- 
dom. He took a book to bed with him and 
read as long as his candle lasted. At early 
dawn he commenced reading again. He 
would read as he walked whether alone or 
with a friend. It was punishment to him to 
have to go to bed. He would rather read. 
It is stated he often became so sleepy in the 
day-time that he would slip from his chair to 
the floor where he would sleep soundly, his 
head roasting before a blazing fire. Southey 
(1774-1843) would read his epics in manu- 
script to any victim he could corner. He 
tried it on Shelley once who evaded the pun- 
ishment by slipping under the table and sleep- 
ing. 


25 


We do not wonder that Shelley was enrolled 
by Southey as a member of the Satanic school 
with Byron. 

Our good friend Edwin Markham (1852-) 
makes pleasant reference to our theme: 

I built a chimney for a comrade old , 

I did the service not for hope or hire — 

And then I traveled on in winter’s cold, 

Yet all the day I glowed before the fire . 

William Watson delighted in the comfort 
of a fire in the fireplace: 

When the winter eves are early and cold, 

The firelight hours are a dream of gold . 

William Shenstone, the early English poet, 
spoke of the comfort of an inn. The pleasure 
he found there typifies that which can be 
found beside the fireplace: 

Whoe’er has travell’d life’s dull round, 
Where’er his various tour has been, 

May sigh, to think how oft he found 
His warmest welcome — at an inn. 

Some may wish in the fireplace picture a 
cat, for 

26 


Her soothing song by the winter fire , 

Soft as the dying throb of the lyre — 

but not for us. 

One’s fireplace is indeed a spot where one 
may become sentimental and reminiscent. It 
is not a spot where one may call up visions of 
the future. There he rather recalls the past. 

In olden times it was pleasant to read aloud 
by it. Unfortunately, the modern furnace 
has helped kill this delightful pastime. Read- 
ing aloud these modern days to a large extent 
has become a lost art, a forgotten accomplish- 
ment. And members of the younger genera- 
tion are the losers by it. 

To enjoy to the fullest the pleasures of the 
fireplace some things in addition to blazing 
logs or cannel coal are necessary. There must 
be easy chairs, for there is nothing like a chair 
for stirring up old memories, and tables load- 
ed with books — not the latest magazines and 
papers — but the old and time-tested favorites. 
While one may read and enjoy for the moment 
many books, yet he wants close to his reading 
lamp and in the intimate corner beside the 
fireplace only the kings of literature, those 


2 7 


volumes neglected by the many but choice 
generals to the few. One may have many 
acquaintances but few friends he cares to live 
with. We want the great books, for in them 
only can we find something of ourselves, chap- 
ters out of our personal history. We want the 
volume that can take us away from cares and 
vexations, for as Bion, that old Greek bucolic 
poet who lived three centuries before our era, 
puts it: 

— since Heaven wills one life to man should 
fall, 

And this is very brief — too brief for all 
We think to do, why should we fret and moil, 
And vex ourselves with never-ending toil? 

To what end waste we life, exhaust our health 
On gainful arts, and sigh for greater wealth? 
We surely all forget our mortal state — 

How brief the life alloted us by Fate! 

On a day of blustering snow, beside the fire- 
place, one discovers the companionable qual- 
ity of a book as at no other time. For then 
we can sing with old Dyer: 

My mind to me a kingdom is: 

Such present joys therein I find, 

28 


That it excels all other bliss 

That earth affords or grows by kind; 
Though much I want that most would have, 
Yet stilt my mind forbids to crave. 

And then the talk about the fireplace, the 
privilege of it, free, sincere, untrammelled! 
Can any joy be greater? When 

The wind f s on the wold, 

And the night is a-cold 

the corner in the library by the fireplace is, as 
Spenser (1552-1599) has it, “the world’s sweet 
inn from care and wearisome toil.” Of course 
we are ever ready to welcome our friends and 
with Peter “use hospitality one to another 
without grudging,” for we are not selfish — 
only at times ! It is but a confession, however, 
to say that with Horace (65-8 B.C.) there are 
evenings when we have great respect for that 
friend qui sedet post fornacem , who remained 
by his own fireside. We even feel inclined to 
put up the hint Ariosto carved over the door 
of his house, parva, sed apta mihi , “small, but 
it suits me.” At such times we can quite well 
sympathize with Theocritus in that couplet 
which, freely translated, states that 


29 


The frog , lads , hath a joyful life , for never 
need he care 

That one should come to fetch his dram; he 
still has drink to spare. 

From Fletcher’s play, Elder Brother , we 
gather that he must have known the joys of a 
fireplace and a library of good books: 

Give me 

Leave to enjoy myself. That place , that does 
Contain my books, the best companions, is 
To me a glorious court, where hourly I 
Converse with the old sages and philosophers; 
And sometimes for vanity I confer 
With kings and emperors, and weigh their 
counsels; 

Calling their victories, if unjustly got, 

Unto a strict account; and in my fancy, 

Deface their ill-placed statues. Can I then 
Part with such constant pleasures, to embrace 
Uncertain vanities? No, be it your care 
To augment a heap of wealth: It shall be 
mine 

To increase in knowledge. Lights there for 
my study. 

What a home for the homeless is the library 
and the fireplace ! We can rather envy at times 
that charming essayist, Alexander Smith, who 


30 


lived alone in his small parish, when he tells 
us that he spent his days in his garden with his 
geraniums but his nights in his library with 
his books. We venture there was a fireplace 
in that library for the lonely man! Wisely in 
his loneliness he had recourse to the sure com- 
panionship of his books, for doubtless they 
cheered him with what Irving calls “the true 
friendship which never deceived hope nor de- 
serted sorrow.” With Southey he could say: 

My days among the dead are passed ; 

Around me I behold , 

Where’er these casual eyes are cast, 

The mighty minds of old; 

My never failing friends are they, 

With whom I converse day by day . 

Francis Hopkinson Smith speaks of “that 
quiet, restful contentment which follows a 
good dinner beside a warm fire and under the 
glow of slow-burning candles.” Truly, the 
library is never so charming as when the fire- 
light dances about it. 

“Persons one could wish to have dined 
with” was once suggested by dear old Leigh 
Hunt as a fine subject on which to write an 


31 


essay. And then he makes casual mention of 
Horace, the Mermaid Tavern cronies, Swift, 
Pope, Johnson, Sir Richard Steele. Is it not 
equally apropos for us of the twentieth cen- 
tury to express the wish that we might have 
visited with these kings of literature beneath 
the reading-lamp and beside the fireplace? 

Only we would enlarge the list to include 
Lamb, and Hunt himself, and Dante, Homer, 
Milton, Goethe, Cervantes, Shakespeare, and 
even that foremost Greek dramatist, Aeschy- 
lus, who, so it is stated, was killed by an eagle 
letting drop a tortoise on his bald head, think- 
ing it was a stone. 

We would also be glad to include gossippy 
Pepys, and Ovid, who measured the years of 
his exile in Pontus by the number of winters 
passed there: 

Thrice hath the cold bound Ister fast , since I 
In Pontus was, thrice Euxine f s wave made 
hard . 

Sancho Panza cried, “Blessings on him that 
first invented sleep ! It wraps a man all round 
like a cloak.” We would call equally blessed 
the man who first lighted the fire on the 


32 


hearth, for when “the days are cold, the nights 
are long,” and “the north-wind sings a doleful 
song” the fireplace is then a comforting insti- 
tution. 

When slippered and at ease before the fire 
we find much enjoyment in those charming 
essays of John Wilson (Christopher North), 
Nodes Ambrosianae. Our love for these was 
shared in other years with the late Colonel 
Clark, of this city, who carried with him in 
the Civil War a set of this immortal work and 
who had marked his favorite passages with a 
pencil. We would not willingly part with 
our set of this work. 

Our friend Theodore Watts-Dunton as a 
boy found Spenser’s Faerie Queene among his 
father’s scientific books and it dominated his 
£ boyhood as it had done that of Keats. And 
though Sir Isaac Newton was pleased to call 
poetry “ingenious nonsense,” yet we find occa- 
sions, on certain evenings, when even such 
ponderous “ingenious nonsense” as this classic 
delights us. 

Wordsworth, who ever links the common- 
place with the divine, and all of whose poems 


33 


have homely titles, makes a pleasing fireside 
companion. 

And then there’s Leigh Hunt, who “suf- 
fered much,” as Virgil would have put it, and 
who complained of his “sorriest arithmetic” 
and his “bad habits of business” — our word 
for it one cannot spend a dull evening with 
him by the fireplace. 

As we write, three small books are on our 
table, and each is a fit fireside companion: 
Bacon’s Essays , Lamb’s Tales from Shake- 
speare , and Emerson’s Representative Men. 
He who cannot find delight in one or all is 
indeed to be pitied. The sixty short essays of 
Bacon, who was so much of a philosopher 
when a mere boy that he broke his drum “to 
look for the sound,” can be read in a few 
hours, yet one can find new beauties in them 
at each reading though he take them up for 
the fiftieth time. They cover a wide variety 
of subjects — Truth, Goodness, Travel, Cun- 
ning, Friendship, Gardens, Love, Envy, 
Riches, Ambitions, Suitors, Praise, Anger. 
One can find a topic philosophically treated 
and suited to the mood of the hour or of the 
fire. 


34 


The Talcs from Shakespeare , written by 
Charles and Mary Lamb, will at once send 
your thoughts to those small quarters in the 
Inner Temple in which they were written and 
call to mind the more than human devotion of 
the brother to the afflicted sister. These tales 
belong to the English classics. They will 
never be surpassed or superseded. And what 
reading they make for the fireplace! We can 
pause from time to time, close our eyes in med- 
itation, and draw a sad but beautiful picture of 
the “dual loneliness” of the Lambs, as Words- 
worth so beautifully termed it. 

Walt Whitman called Emerson the “truest, 
sanest, most moral, sweetest literary man on 
record.” Says another: “Look through all 
Emerson’s writings, and then consider whether 
in all literature you can find a man who has 
better fulfilled that aspiration stated in such 
condensed words by Joubert, ‘to put a whole 
book into a page, a whole page into a phrase, 
and that phrase into a word.’ ” 

These three immortals for fireside com- 
panions are indeed to be preferred to most of 
the writers of our so-called modern literature. 
Their writings as a whole are more suited to 

35 


the library, the reading lamp, and the fireside 
than to any other spot. 

Shakespeare is not to be found in any of his 
plays. In none of them does he intrude his 
personality. Nowhere does he force himself 
upon us. Hence he is a friend worthy a place 
by the fireside, for the man who hastens to tell 
you all about himself and his petty doings is 
not always the one most worth knowing. If 
we desire to know what is going on with all 
kinds of people, however, we look up Shake- 
speare and find him a friend. 

During the year we have passed many an 
evening under the reading lamp and in front 
of the fireplace with two kingly authors — 
Oliver Goldsmith (1728-1774) and Samuel 
Johnson (1709-1784). These evenings were 
spent in such a worth-while way, our souls 
were so enriched by their companionship, that 
we do not hesitate to recommend to our friends 
a closer acquaintance with them. 

Goldsmith tells us much of his struggle all 
through life in his Vicar of Wakefield , which 
is largely biographical of his father, “passing 
rich with forty pounds a year,” and of himself. 

36 


One can find, indeed, much of Goldsmith in 
his writings. His personal experiences are 
given in various characters he has drawn for 
us. His Vicar of Wakefield has been called 
the best novel, his Deserted Village the best 
poem, and She Stoops to Conquer the best 
comedy of his generation. This is surely high 
distinction, but it is deserved. “Who but 
must lament,” says Rev. Dr. Knox — not John 
Knox — “that he who felt so tenderly, and 
wrote so sweetly, often wanted a shilling to 
provide him with his daily bread.” It is 
claimed that the first ten lines of his Traveller , 
written as the result of his vagabondage over 
the Continent in his student days, is not ex- 
ceeded in magnificence of style and tenderness 
of affection by any verses in the English lan- 
guage. Here they are; judge for yourself: 

Remote , unfriended , melancholy , slow — 

Or by the lazy Scheldt or wandering Po, 

Or onward where the rude Carinthian boor 
Against the houseless stranger shuts the door, 
Or where Campania's plain forsaken lies 
A weary waste expanding to the skies — 
Where'er I roam, whatever realms to see, 

My heart, untravell'd, fondly turns to thee ; 


37 


Still to my brother turns , with ceaseless pain , 
And drags at each remove a lengthening chain. 

These lines have a deeper significance for us 
when we recall that they were addressed to his 
brother, Henry Goldsmith, who was content 
to serve as minister to a small country church 
in Ireland, and of whom Oliver was very fond. 

For some time Oliver had been doing hack- 
work in London, and the Traveller was the 
first of his literary work to which his name 
was affixed. He dedicates it to his brother in 
lines that have become famous: 

I am sensible that the friendship between us 
can acquire no new force from the ceremonies 
of a dedication; and perhaps it demands an 
excuse thus to prefix your name to my at- 
tempts, which you decline giving with your 
own . But as a part of this poem was formerly 
written to you from Switzerland, the whole 
can now, with propriety , be only inscribed to 
you . It will also throw a light upon many 
parts of it, when the reader understands that 
it is addressed to a man who, despising fame 
and fortune, has retired early to happiness and 
obscurity with an income of forty pounds a 
year. 

I now perceive, my dear brother, the wis- 

38 


dom of your humble choice. You have en- 
tered upon a sacred office , where the harvest is 
great, and the labourers are but few ; while 
you have left the field of ambition, where the 
labourers are many, and the harvest not worth 
carrying away . But of all kinds of ambi- 
tion — what from the refinement of the times, 
from differing systems of criticism, and from 
the divisions of party — that which pursues 
poetical fame is the wildest. 

“Goldy, sir, has great merit,” was Johnson’s 
brief comment on the Traveller. These two 
giants were not noted for their beauty, Gold- 
smith’s face being pitted by the small-pox, and 
Johnson’s marred by the scrofula. But after 
hearing Johnson read this poem, the sister of 
Joshua Reynolds declared with vivacity, 
“Well, I never more shall think Doctor Gold- 
smith ugly.” 

In the Vicar he has given us his own experi- 
ences, his sufferings, “the sweet emotion of his 
chequered life.” He thus has made them a 
lesson to all men. He has shown us how good 
predominates over evil. He has taught us the 
beneficence of patient labor, a reliance on 
providence, the happiness that comes to the 
spirit of him who condones the faults and in- 


39 


firmities of others. We are taught that humble 
people have their place in the world; that 
heroism need not be dependent upon great 
effort or show only in spectacular perform- 
ances or critical situations. We are shown 
that good may exist in the midst of small fol- 
lies, and simple weaknesses. 

Speaking of the vicar and his wife, with 
their children around them, their quiet labor 
and domestic happiness, Walter Scott declared 
it to be in all his novel-reading without a par- 
allel of perfect beauty. 

And what a picture of a happy fireside it is! 
But it is not simply that; it is one over which 
calamity and sorrow can rest but temporarily. 
The vicar regains his cheerful patience by 
remembering how much kinder heaven is to 
us than we are to ourselves. 

The Vicar was written in 1764 but not pub- 
lished until 1766. The manuscript was sold 
by Johnson for <£60 while the author was de- 
tained in his room by his landlady for debt. 

She Stoops to Conquer was dedicated to 
Johnson: 

It may do me some honor to inform the pub- 
lic that I have lived many years in intimacy 


40 


with you . It may serve the interests of man- 
kind also to inform them that the greatest wit 
may be found in a character without impair- 
ing the most unaffected piety. 

Goldsmith’s Deserted Village is justly one 
of the most popular poems in our language. 
It is full of lines that are familiar today to 
every high school pupil. Published in 1770, 
it was dedicated to his staunchest friend, Sir 
Joshua Reynolds. “The only dedication I 
ever made,” he writes, “was to my brother, 
because I loved him better than most other 
men. He is since dead. Permit me to in- 
scribe this poem to you.” 

The poem made a hit. Gray on his dying 
bed, hearing it read, exclaimed, “That man 
is a poet.” A more delightful poem probably 
never was written. It lingers in the memory. 
It came from the heart. It is one of the sweet- 
est poems in our literature. Will anyone ever 
forget “Sweet Auburn! loveliest village of the 
plain.” And what a series of pictures in it! 

The shelter d cot , the cultivated farm , 

The never-failing brook, the busy mill, 

The decent church that topp f d the neighbor- 
ing hill, 


41 


The hawthorn bush with seats beneath the 
shade 

For talking age and whispering lovers made. 

Can we not see the “sweet smiling village, 
loveliest of the lawn?” And does any reader 
of this poem ever forget these lines : 

III fares the land , to hastening ills a prey , 
Where wealth accumulates , and men decay: 
Princes and lords may flourish, or may fade — 
A breath can make them, as a breath has made; 
But a bold peasantry, their country’s pride, 
When once destroy’d, can never be supplied . 

Then there is that picture of the village 
preacher — the author’s father: 

A man he was to all the country dear; 

And passing rich with forty pounds a year. 
Remote from towns he ran his godly race, 

Nor e’er had chang’d, nor wish’d to change, 
his place; 

Unpractis’d he to fawn, or seek for power 
By doctrines fashion’d to the varying hour, 
Far other aims his heart had team’d to prize — 
More skill’d to raise the wretched than to rise. 
His house was known to all the vagrant train; 
He chid their wanderings, but reliev’d their 
pain; 


42 


The long remember d beggar was his guest, 
Whose beard descending swept his aged breast ; 
The ruin’d spendthrift, now no longer proud, 
Claim’d kindred there, and had his claims al- 
low’ d; 

The broken soldier, kindly bade to stay, 

Sat by his fire, and talk’d the night away — 
Wept o’er his wounds, or, tales of sorrow done, 
Shoulder’d his crutch and show’ d how fields 
were won . 

Pleas’d with his guests, the good man learn’ d 
to glow, 

And quite forgot their vices in their woe ; 
Careless their merits or their faults to scan, 
His pity gave ere charity began. 

We cannot resist another quotation from 
this sweet and tender poem: 

At church, with meek and unaffected grace, 
His looks adorn’d the venerable place; 

Truth from his lips prevail’d with double 
sway, 

And fools who came to scoff remain’d to pray. 
The service pass’d, around the pious man, 
With steady zeal, each honest rustic ran; 

Even children follow’d, with endearing wile, 
And pluck’d his gown, to share the good man’s 
smile: 

His ready smile a parent’s warmth express’d, 

43 


Their welfare pleasd him , and their cares dis- 
tress'd. 

To them his heart , his love, his griefs were 
given, 

But all his serious thoughts had rest in heaven; 
As some tall cliff, that lifts its awful form, 
Swells from the vale, and midway leaves the 
storm, 

Though round its breast the rolling clouds are 
spread, 

Eternal sunshine settles on its head. 

This poem alone entitles Goldsmith to an 
honored place at the fireside. Indeed every- 
thing he wrote made for cheerfulness and 
friendliness and sympathy. “Whether we 
take Goldsmith as a poet,” said Johnson, “as a 
comic writer, or as an historian, he stands in 
the first class.” And again he remarks: “Is 
there a man, sir, now, who can pen an essay 
with such ease and elegance as Goldsmith?” 

Johnson’s epitaph, “was ever a poet so trust- 
ed before,” is a masterly summing up of his 
life. 

Goldsmith knew not the value of money. 
He was ever in debt to publisher, tailor, or 
friend. But his generosity was unbounded. 
He gave away the very garments on his back. 


44 


Once while at college be brought down his 
bed-clothes to a poor woman with a piteous 
tale and then cut open the feather mattress to 
secure warmth. At another time he pawned 
his suit and books given for review to provide 
a Christmas dinner for a poor woman and her 
children whose husband and father was in jail. 
He ever borrowed money when he could to 
give it later to some begging imposter. 

The little dinner given by Goldsmith to 
Johnson in Wine Office Court on the 31st of 
May, 1761, is a memorable one in literature. 
When Percy called upon the great lexicog- 
rapher to take him to the dinner he found 
him minus his rusty brown suit and dirty shirt, 
his baggy knee-breeches, unbuckled shoes, and 
his tiny unpowdered wig. Rallied on this un- 
usual transformation he replied: “Why, sir, 
I hear that Goldsmith, who is a very great 
sloven, justifies his disregard of cleanliness 
and decency by quoting my practice; and I 
am desirous this night to show him a better 
example.” 

The result of the “example” was somewhat 
disastrous to the slim finances of Goldsmith, 


45 


as may be judged from the tailors’ bills that 
shortly began to pile up. 

Oh, that there had been a Boswell at this 
dinner! 

Goldsmith had the habit of reading in bed 
with the candle on a table some distance away. 
When tired of reading he threw his slipper at 
the candle so that in the morning candle and 
slipper rested side by side on the floor. 

Johnson was near-sighted and hence was 
compelled to hold the candle close to his text. 
He threw his book on the floor and extin- 
guished the candle by putting it beneath his 
pillow. 

Goldsmith could not in any sense order his 
own life. He had sounded all its depths and 
reached all its heights. He knew all about 
life except how to live. In the last five years 
of his life he received princely sums for his 
work but died deeply in debt — had nothing 
to show for it but a few beggars weeping out- 
side his chamber. 

Goldsmith pleaded for a kindlier treatment 
of authors by the nation. “An author,” he 
wrote, “may be considered as a merciful sub- 
stitute to the legislature. He acts not by pun- 

46 


ishing crimes, but by preventing them.” And 
again : “If the author be therefore still neces- 
sary among us, let us treat him with a proper 
consideration as a child of the public, not a 
rent-charge on the community. And indeed 
a child of the republic he is in all respects; for 
while so well able to direct others, how in- 
capable is he frequently found of guiding him- 
self! His simplicity exposes him to all the 
insidious approaches of cunning; his sensibil- 
ity, to the slightest invasions of contempt. It 
is enough that the age has already produced 
instances of men pressing foremost in the lists 
of fame, and worthy of better times, schooled 
by continued adversity into a hatred of their 
kind, flying from thought to drunkenness, 
yielding to the united pressure of labor, pen- 
ury, and sorrow, sinking unheeded, without 
one friend to drop a tear on their unattended 
obsequies, and indebted to charity for a grave.” 

How he seemed to foresee his own end! 
For he himself in a few years yielded to that 
“united pressure of labor, penury, and sor- 
row,” securing a peaceful burial by the for- 
bearance of his creditors. Walpole called 
him “an inspired idiot,” and there is a grain 


47 


of truth in the remark. But lovers of books 
and of the fireplace are glad he lived and 
wrote so charmingly. 

Unhesitatingly do we recommend the writ- 
ings of Samuel Johnson for the reading lamp 
and the fireplace. Especially commended by 
us is Boswell’s Johnson. Of all men he is best 
known because he had a Boswell. A long 
search must be made before a better fireside 
book will be found. You may open the vol- 
umes at any page and find entertainment. 
There never is disappointment. “The world’s 
great biography,” is the proper estimate to be 
placed on it. 

“I will venture to say,” says Boswell, “that 
he will be seen in this work more completely 
than any man who has yet ever lived.” Bos- 
well certainly had supreme confidence in him- 
self, but we’re glad of it. Because of Boswell 
we know Johnson better than his intimates 
knew him. If ever another Johnson should 
be given to earth by a gracious heaven, may a 
second Boswell be included in the gift. 

“Who is this Scotch cur that is always fol- 
lowing at Johnson’s heels,” some one asked 
one day. 

48 


“He is not a cur,” replied Goldsmith, “he 
is only a burr that Tom Davies threw at John- 
son as a jest and he has stuck to him ever 
since.” 

It was at the shop of Davies that Boswell 
met Johnson, who quickly insulted him, but 
Boswell refused to take the snub, asked John- 
son’s pardon, and craved permission to call 
upon him the next day. This was granted, 
and thereafter until Johnson’s death, Boswell 
was ever at his heels. The sycophantic Bos- 
well later marked the very spot on the floor 
where he stood when he was introduced to 
Johnson. 

Boswell is described by Forster as a “wine- 
bibbing, tavern babbler,” a “meddling, con- 
ceited, inquisitive, capacious lion hunter,” a 
“bloated and vain young Scot,” in whom 
nevertheless, “lie qualities of reverence, real 
insight, quick observation, and marvellous 
memory, which, strangely assorted as they are 
with those other meaner habits, and parasit- 
ical, self-complacent absurdities, will one day 
connect his name eternally with the men of 
genius of his times, and enable him to influ- 
ence posterity in its judgments on them.” 


49 


This has proved to be the fact. 

Johnson’s private conversations, the caprice 
of momentary ill humor, the weakness of dis- 
ease, the common infirmities of human nature 
have been given us, but none of those alleviat- 
ing circumstances which doubtless attended 
them. 

We now forgive his roughness of manner, 
his superstition, and his prejudices, and re- 
member only his charity, his piety, the manly 
vigor of his thought. “Notwithstanding all 
this, I am still Samuel Johnson,” he might 
have said, as did Corneille. 

And speaking of Johnson, suggests the 
wealth of good literature to be found in the 
British Essayists. Our set is the forty-volume 
edition, in small size, and recently rebound 
for us in full buckram, with leather labels. 
They fill comfortably one shelf. They are 
appealing as friends of the fireplace. The 
books do not tire the hand to hold. Each 
essay is but three or four pages in length. One 
may read a single contribution at a sitting, or 
several, and between readings watch the fire 
glow in the grate and send one’s thoughts 
back to the time when they were written. 


5 ° 


What giants there were in those days in Eng- 
lish literature! How they live today, because 
they were giants! Would we not love to wit- 
ness a meeting at the Mitre tavern of the mem- 
bers of the Literary Club in the founding of 
which Johnson was a prime mover, and in 
which he led the talk? We have no such gath- 
erings today, more’s the regret. 

And was there ever such another club as this 
Literary Club? There was Johnson, already 
famous, and Goldsmith, much younger but 
becoming more famous each year. Among its 
members were Sir Joshua Reynolds, the great- 
est painter in England and the steadfast 
friend of sensitive, prodigal Goldsmith, and 
Burke, the most honored statesman and poli- 
tician in Britain. 

Of the two hundred and eight brilliant es- 
says in the Rambler volumes, Johnson wrote 
all except ten; of the one hundred and three in 
the Idler , Boswell’s hero was the author of all 
except a dozen. He also contributed a num- 
ber of essays which appeared in the Adven- 
turer , founded by his friend, Dr. Hawkes- 
worth, and issued in weekly or semi-weekly 
parts, in line with the Rambler . 


5 1 


These essays cover a wide variety of sub- 
jects. Some of the topics are quite alluring, 
and a poor lover of reading is he who is not 
impelled to investigate. Many a time the 
fire on the hearth has burned to ashes and the 
midnight alarm has been sounded by the old 
Seth Thomas on the mantlepiece before we 
could persuade ourselves to end the evening’s 
entertainment. 

Are not these topics pleasantly teasing, and 
do they not suggest possibilities of entertain- 
ment: “Omar’s Plan of Life;” “Sleep;” “Auc- 
tion Hunter;” “Uncertainty of Friendship;” 
“The Voyage of Life;” “The Importance of 
Punctuality;” “The Art of Living at the Cost 
of Others;” “Account of the Church Ther- 
mometer;” “On a Dull Style in Sermons;” 
“Danger of Masquerades — Letter from a 
Dealer in Fig Leaves;” “The Want of Per- 
sonal Beauty a Frequent Cause of Virtue and 
Happiness;” “On the Fear of Growing Old;” 
“On the Folly and Wickedness of War;” “Old 
Women most proper Objects of Love;” “Es- 
say on Posts;” “Necks — Reasons for Paint- 
ing;” “Infelicities of Marriage, owing to the 
Husband’s not giving way to the Wife.” 


52 


The best of Johnson and Addison and Steele 
and Pope and other writers of the eighteenth 
century are to be found in these small volumes. 

No subject was left untouched by these bril- 
liant essayists. Religion, taste, love, jealousy, 
marriage, friendship — these were topics treat- 
ed with wit and humor. By their writings 
these essayists brought “philosophy out of 
closets and libraries, schools and colleges, to 
dwell in clubs and assemblies, at tea-tables, 
and in coffee-houses.” The quotation at the 
beginning of the first forty papers in the first 
series of these essays, the Tatler , suggested by 
a quotation from the Satires of Juvenal, ex- 
plains the object aimed at by Sir Richard 
Steele, the father of the idea of the papers: 

Whatever men do, or say, or think, or dream, 
Our motley paper seizes for its theme . 

Essay No. 12 in the Idler is an entertaining 
one for fireside reading. Its subject is, “Mar- 
riage, why Advertised?” Johnson complains 
that accounts of battles are often interrupted 
by a notice such as “Mr. Buckram, an eminent 
salesman . . . and Miss Dolly Juniper, 

the only daughter of an eminent distiller,” 

53 


were married. He doesn’t like this, nor can 
he see the reason for it, and suggests that these 
“marriage advertisements” might be omitted 
without any loss to the community. But if 
they are to be published he suggests that if the 
newly wed “cannot be happy on their bridal 
day without some gratification of their vanity, 
I hope they will be willing to encourage a 
friend of mine who proposes to devote his 
powers to their service.” 

This friend, it appears, had prepared a 
standing elegy and a marriage notice. He 
had intermediate pages which were applicable 
alike to every character. “When any mar- 
riage became known, Settle ran to the bride- 
groom with his epithalamium; and when he 
heard of any death, ran to the heir with his 
elegy.” He notes, too, that his friend will sell 
any man or woman the virtue or qualification 
which is most fashionable or most desired, set- 
ting beauty at the highest price, and riches at 
the next; “and, if he be well paid, throws in 
virtue for nothing.” 

No one thinks to look for sentiment and 
tenderness in the preface to a dictionary, yet 
it is said that Horne Tooke could never read 


54 


Johnson’s preface to his dictionary without 
shedding a tear. And, remember, Horne 
Tooke was “the ablest and most malevolent of 
all the enemies of his fame.” 

Johnson wrote Rasselas while his mother 
lay dying. It is not a favorite with the young, 
yet as the years come to us we lay it down 
with a sigh. It gives us a profound view of 
life. “Never were the expenses of a mother’s 
funeral more gloriously defrayed by a son 
than the funeral of Samuel Johnson’s mother 
by the price of Rasselas , written for the pious 
purpose of laying her head decently and hon- 
orably in the dust.” 

At times Johnson’s finances were in such a 
state that he was compelled to live on four 
pence halfpenny a day, and to roam the streets 
at night with Savage or some other friend in 
misfortune for want of enough money to pay 
for a lodging. 

Johnson’s letter to Chesterfield who had 
praised his Dictionary when he realized that 
it was going to be a great work, after he had 
promised his financial aid but had never given 
it, is a classic. Listen: 

Is not a patron , my Lord , one who looks 

55 


with unconcern on a man struggling for life 
in the water , and when he has reached ground , 
incumbers him with help? The notice which 
you have been pleased to take of my labors , 
had it been early had been kind ; but it has 
been delayed till I am indifferent, and cannot 
enjoy it; till I am solitary, and cannot impart 
it; till I am known, and do not want it . I 
hope it is no very cynical asperity not to con- 
fess obligations where no benefit has been re- 
ceived, or to be unwilling that the public 
should consider me as owing that to a patron 
which Providence has enabled me to do for 
myself . 

Sitting by the fireplace there comes to us the 
picture of Johnson and David Garrick trudg- 
ing together to London to try their fortunes in 
the great city. Garrick had been a student 
under Johnson at a seminary conducted by 
him in the provinces. The venture was not a 
success. And we cannot but be glad it was a 
failure, in view of the fame and honor each 
attained in the world’s greatest city. 

What a fine old fellow was Johnson, as Bos- 
well shows him to us! “Indolence and pro- 
crastination,” he tells us, “were inherent in his 
constitution.” This is true, due, doubtless, to 
his ill health. 

56 


“Sunday was a heavy day to me,” says John- 
son. And no wonder. His mother kept him 
in on that day and compelled him to read The 
Whole Duty of Man . 

A little later, Boswell tells us, he was sent 
to find a seat in another church, his own being 
under repairs, but, says Johnson, “having bad 
eyes, and being awkward about this, I used to 
go and read in the fields on Sunday . . . ; 

and still I find a great reluctance to go to 
church.” Not very astonishing to us today. 

He sends a poem to Cave, and asks consid- 
eration because the author “lies at present 
under very disadvantageous circumstances of 
fortune.” This was his London, a Poem, in 
Imitation of the Third Satire of Juvenal. 
Notice how he evades telling that the one 
under “very disadvantageous circumstances of 
fortune” was himself. 

At another time he writes his publisher: 
“If you could spare me another guinea for the 
history, I should take it very kindly, tonight; 
but if you do not, I shall not think it an in- 
jury.” Could anything be more delightful? 

He was flattered by the king visiting him in 
his library, telling afterwards, “Sir, they may 


57 


talk of the king as they will, but he is the finest 
gentleman I have ever seen.” 

In these days we may well laugh at his say- 
ing, “Why, sir, most schemes of political im- 
provement are very laughable things.” 

He said that Burton’s Anatomy of Melan- 
choly was the only book that took him out of 
bed two hours sooner than he wished to rise. 

Boswell feared the influence on Johnson of 
Savage, who was licentious and dissipated, 
and that he must have been led imperceptibly 
“into some indulgences which occasioned 
much distress to his virtuous mind.” 

This is fine! 

Many of Johnson’s sayings have become as 
well known as the most familiar passages in 
the Bible. 

He loved London, as do most people who 
know it, its history, and the great and lovable 
figures of the past who have walked its streets. 
“When a man is tired of London,” said he, “he 
is tired of life. 

Here is a happy illustration that has its 
application to many things : “A cow is a very 
good animal in the field; but we turn her out 
of the garden.” He ever had an antipathy to 

58 


the Scots. “Much may be made of a Scotch- 
man,” he told Boswell, “if he be caught 
young.” And again: “The noblest prospect 
which a Scotchman ever sees is the high road 
that leads him to England.” 

On being informed that a man he knew who 
had been very unhappy in marriage had again 
married shortly after the death of his wife, 
Johnson calmly remarked that it was the “tri- 
umph of hope over experience.” 

Is there not enjoyment at the fireplace in 
reading these caustic but friendly criticisms? 

During our Revolutionary War he was an 
ardent Tory. He wrote a pamphlet against 
us, but we can forgive him for his opinion of 
Americans: “Sir, they are a race of convicts, 
and ought to be thankful for anything we 
allow them short of hanging.” At another 
time he remarked : “I am willing to love all 
mankind, except an American.” 

Johnson loved the tavern as the meeting 
place for kindred spirits. He always insisted 
on his right to sit at the head of the table. “A 
tavern chair,” he remarked, “is the throne of 
felicity.” 

And how he loved the hospitality of the 

59 


Thrale home, “sitting up as long as the fire 
and candles lasted, and much longer than the 
patience of the servants subsisted.” 

Johnson was deeply religious, though he 
ever felt a keen sense of his shortcomings. He 
was charitable beyond his means, well ex- 
emplifying the divine maxim that “it is more 
blessed to give than to receive.” The blind, 
the lame, the poor, found an asylum in his 
house. 

Many of his prayers show deep feeling 
and profound reverence. They have been 
gathered into a book that makes a charming 
volume for the quiet moments spent at the 
fireplace. 

For downright prose Dr. Johnson’s offer of 
hand and heart to his second wife would be 
very hard to beat. “My dear woman,” said 
Johnson, “I am a hardworking man and with- 
al something of a philosopher. I am, as you 
know, very poor. I have always been respect- 
able myself, but I grieve to tell you that one 
of my uncles was hanged.” 

“I have less money than you, Doctor,” de- 
murely answered the lady, “but I shall try to 
be philosophical too. None of my relatives 


6o 


has ever been hanged, but I have several who 
ought to be.” 

“Providence and philosophy have evidently 
mated us, my good woman,” said the doctor 
as he pressed a chaste salute upon the lady’s 
brow. 

Johnson’s monumental work, his Diction- 
ary , still stands as one of the most remarkable 
works accomplished by one man in his life- 
time. At the present day it is considered by 
many to be a mark or sign of learning to hold 
up the labors of Johnson to ridicule, forget- 
ting the fact that every lexicographer since his 
day has based each new effort on the founda- 
tion he laid. Some there are who credit Bos- 
well alone with bringing fame to the name of 
Johnson; but it seems rather peculiar that the 
famous dictionary should run through many 
scores of editions within a century and its com- 
piler not hold his rightful place among the 
greatest men in the histories of learned nations, 
without the glory which is supposed to have 
been conferred on him by James Boswell. 
His dictionary is the finest monument Johnson 
will ever have to his memory; far better than 
sculptured stone or cast bronze, his work will 

6l 


ever be a great landmark in the evolution of 
our language. From the chaos in which he 
found it to an orderly rendering according to 
a definite method was the work of one man 
whose labors will percolate through the litera- 
ture of our tongue for centuries to come. 

And now the fire on the hearth burns low. 
There is more ash than flame, and we are re- 
minded that it is high time to end our com- 
muning together. We do so with reluctance, 
for we have enjoyed more than our words can 
tell our meeting with our friends beside our 
fireplace, the spirits of Goldsmith, and John- 
son, and the other worthies of their time hov- 
ering about us. 

May we not end our talk with the words of 
Samuel Johnson’s prayer: 

Almighty and most merciful Father, in 
whose hands are life and death, as thou hast 
suffered me to see the beginning of another 
year, grant, I beseech thee, that another year 
may not be lost in idleness, or squandered in 
unprofitable employment. Let not sin pre- 
vail on the remaining part of life, and take not 
from me thy Holy Spirit, but as every day 
brings me nearer to my end, let every day con- 

62 


tribute to make my end holy and happy . En- 
able me, O Lord, to use all enjoyments with 
due temperance, preserve me from unseason- 
able and immoderate sleep, and enable me to 
run with diligence the race that is set before 
me, that, after the troubles of this life, I may 
obtain everlasting happiness. 




OF THIS BOOK ONE HUNDRED AND 
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